by Tom Early
“Do we have to hurt the dogs?” Tyler’s voice echoed pleadingly in my mind. “Look at them, Fay. They don’t look that terrible. Maybe we could just ignore them?”
I glanced at the way one of the dogs bared his teeth at Tyler and then winced as a portion of my energy drained from the force necessary to keep its snapping jaws away from my boyfriend’s legs. I loved dogs, but that was enough to push me past my desire to just pet them and hope for the best.
I whispered a few words and set a blue glow spinning around Tyler’s weapons. “Try hitting with the flat of your blade. I put a Dispel on your weapons—if we’re lucky, that’ll be enough to just make them go away without hurting them.”
Tyler nodded and promptly thwacked one of the dogs on the nose with his sword as it leaped for his chest. It gave a piteous whimper and faded away, and Tyler grinned for a moment before yelping and ducking as Emerus sent another three arrows for his throat. My cat sídhe had been keeping the other four dogs busy, but the elf seemed happy to just be taking potshots at us from safety. He was also whispering something, though, and considering I hadn’t seen him try anything big yet, that couldn’t be good. Come to think of it, I had no idea what his Form was from what he’d attempted so far. Summoning dogs and vines wasn’t really enough to draw any conclusions from.
Then Emerus hissed the final word of whatever he’d been chanting, and the ground absolutely erupted with vines, lashing and—ow—covered with thorns, blanketing the entire space almost immediately. That was definitely Change magic, then. The cat sídhe managed to bat one of the dogs out of existence before disappearing with a yowl as thorny vines wrapped themselves up its legs. Tyler was busy slicing away the vines reaching toward him, and for the moment my Ward was keeping the thorns just inches away from my legs. What was it Alferon had said? Infusion was about persuasion—Change magic might be able to make something out of nothing, but Infusion magic was what could put things to real use. One thing my lessons had established was that despite my affinity for earth magic, I wasn’t all that good at getting plants to cooperate—but I couldn’t study under a Speaker and not pick up a few things.
When the wave of vines reached out for me, razor-sharp leaves and all, I was ready. I said the words carefully and calmly, and they just… halted, before doing an abrupt about-face and bristling toward the rest of the approaching vines instead. I could only take control of a few of them, but judging by the way they were shredding any of the other vines that got too close, it was enough to keep them off me. Emerus’s face was indignant, and I tried to hold back a smirk—Change magic might have been able to create a lot of things at once, but Infusion could put his creations to use better than he ever could. Unfortunately, I could only persuade the vines closest to me, and that meant Tyler was stuck dealing with an unimpeded wave and three angry dogs coming after him.
I gasped and tried not to fall to my knees as another swarm of vines battered against his Ward from every angle. Tyler was doing his best to cut them down, but he couldn’t move much at all, and two blades really wasn’t much help against a forest. The dogs were taking turns harrying at his ankles, getting closer to his skin every time as I was forced to shrink the Ward to conserve energy. I threw a Minor Orb at one of the dogs only to watch as it sank into the mess of thrashing leaves with no noticeable effect. So, I turned toward Emerus instead. His hands were still pressed to the ground, vines pouring out all around him, his bow dropped in favor of keeping the vines moving. I had maybe another twenty seconds before I’d be forced to drop Tyler’s Ward, so I had to make this quick.
As it turned out, Minor Orbs were a lot like Wards in that they changed to reflect affinities, if you put enough focus into them. Sam could fill hers with light like the ercinee, and before my change my Orbs were like contained snowstorms—I could feel part of me clamoring to make them like that again. But now… I concentrated, and the earth beneath my feet rose and condensed into a polished sphere the size of my fist. If Emerus let this hit him, he’d be out. I gave him a little wave and launched the orb at him with all the force I could muster. Emerus’s eyes widened, and then he rolled out of the way and all of the vines in the Arena fell limp. I let out a sigh of relief as Tyler’s Ward stopped draining me so drastically, and then threw another two Minor Orbs at the dogs just as Tyler dispelled another one. The end result was a panting, adrenaline-fueled Tyler, jelly legs and mental fatigue for me, and Emerus, looking at both of us with narrowed eyes, bow back in his hands and an arrow already nocked and drawn. I doubted either of us had the energy for any more fancy tricks, which meant it was time to finish this.
I pushed my remaining energy into keeping our low-cost wind Wards active, and then Tyler and I advanced on Emerus, letting the arrows fly harmlessly wide as he launched them more and more desperately. I grinned. We had this. Tyler was raising his swords to strike and I had just summoned a Minor Orb when Emerus’s expression sharpened, and he launched an arrow at my throat point-blank, a blue glow of Dispel surrounding it. It tore through my Ward without the slightest resistance, and I screwed my eyes shut and threw out a hand in desperation as everything flashed white.
After five seconds of bracing for an impact that never came, I cautiously opened my eyes. The arrow was on the ground in front of me, blocked by an unmarred chunk of ice that had manifested directly in its path. What’s more, Emerus was frozen solid, covered in an incredibly thick layer of ice. I could still see his eyes fixed on me, triumphant. Tyler had put away his swords and was blinking at the statue in front of him. The Arena was deadly quiet, everyone who had come to watch staring at me, at what I’d done in the span of a second. What’s worse, I felt fine. Energetic, even. Like freezing Emerus had completely refilled my batteries and then some. I stared at his frozen body. Not a single flash of red light yet. No injury. Nothing. It would be so easy to change that, to break through those pathetic rune-barriers and—
“Fay?” Tyler said cautiously. “I can feel whatever it is you’re doing. The fight’s over. You can stop now.” He laid a hand on my shoulder, and whatever it was I was feeling drained out of me completely, leaving me swaying and exhausted. He pulled me into an embrace just as my legs decided to quit on me. “It’s okay,” he said softly. “I’ve got you.”
“Emerus Trillian is incapacitated and unable to continue,” the Speaker called out. “The winner is Feayr Hanson!”
There was some scattered applause, and then everyone’s attention was turned to Emerus as I made a tired gesture and let the ice fall away from him before walking out. Sam rushed to meet me at the edge of the stands.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen, right?” she asked. “Could you even tell what you were doing?”
I shook my head. “As soon as the arrow got through my Ward, it was like the magic reacted on its own. I didn’t have any control over it. It just took care of the problem.”
“Dude!” Nick said, bounding out of nowhere. “I didn’t know you could do that! That was amazing! We haven’t had ice magic in years—now I get how you got such a good score in the Trial.”
“Yeah, well, it won’t be happening again,” I said, leaning into Tyler, who was already supporting most of my weight. I turned to Sam. “Next time I’m just gonna withdraw from the fight and take the drop in my ranking. I can’t risk something like that again.”
Sam nodded. “I’ll keep people off your back, whenever you need.”
Nick frowned at both of us. “Okaaay,” he said. “I don’t know what that was all about, but I’m the one in charge of scheduling matchups during the Arena season. Fay, your powers could be one hell of an asset to Obsidian—are you sure you don’t want to use them?”
“Trust me, it never ends well,” I said wearily.
“Okay,” Nick said, taking that in. “I’ll do what I can to keep your plate clean. Might want to take that up with someone in charge, though—well, more in charge than me, I mean. And I’d watch out for duel requests. There are going to be a lot of people wondering how you managed t
o hide whatever it is you just did and not taking no for an answer.”
“Myself included” came a voice to our right. Morgan, the guy from Sol, had come down from the stands. He gave me a narrowed look. “I don’t know what reason you have to hide your power, but you’re not at a place that rewards doing so.”
I felt Tyler’s arms wrap around me a little more tightly and Sam bristled. “Nobody is fighting Fay without getting through me first,” she said sharply.
Morgan raised an eyebrow. “Like that would be a challenge.”
Drained as I was, I decided to ignore the sudden tension in favor of asking a question that had stuck in my mind from back before Sam’s match with Gwaine. “Morgan, you’re from Avalon, right?”
Morgan shifted his attention back to me. I noticed hazily that his eyes were almost a purplish sort of blue. “I am, yeah. What of it?”
“I was told earlier that Avalon had an Arthurian myth-naming tradition thing. Was there a knight named Morgan?”
Morgan snorted. “No. I decided I like Morgan better than my old name, so that’s what I’m called.” He gave me a dangerously casual look, and I was pretty sure I could hear Nick gulp somewhere behind me. “Got a problem with that?”
I shook my head. “Not in the least. I still don’t want to fight you, though.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that just yet,” Morgan said with a shrug, already back to looking bored by the entire conversation. “I’ll wait until you’re warmed up enough to actually be a challenge first.” He gave Sam a pointed look. “And after I’ve gotten through the guard dog, I suppose. Hope you’re good at dealing with water.” He walked off, hands in his pockets, and I tried not to make my sigh of relief too obvious.
“Let’s go back to your room,” Tyler said gently. “You look like you could use a nap for like a year or so.”
“Good plan. Join me?”
“Like you even have to ask.”
“SO,” SAM said that night as the three of us gathered in my room. “How did it feel, exactly? Was it good to use your powers again?”
I grimaced. “It felt really good. Too good, actually. I think Winter got out a little just from me doing that much.”
Tyler nodded from where he was sitting next to me. “Yeah, I could feel that. You know how I can sort of sometimes feel what you’re feeling through the familiar bond? Well, for a moment there it was like you just wanted to kill everyone around you. You weren’t angry either—it was like you found the idea fun, like it made you happy.” He shuddered. “Not a fun thing to feel.”
“Jeez,” Sam said. “Winter really is evil. Who the hell thinks of killing people as fun?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know anything about any of this. I don’t even know how Winter is even a thing. Like, a lot of the myths and legends we heard about on Earth ended up being real people, or, uh, sort of people, on Gaia. Wouldn’t it make sense that there’d be at least a few stories about a season that’s more than just a season?”
Sam frowned. “You’re right. That is weird. Maybe it’s because Winter is older than humanity?” she offered. “I mean, all the stories that we remember at least sort of happened in our recorded history, right? Like the Minotaur—that was apparently a beast the early Families used as an execution method.” We’d covered that in our last History of Gaia class. I had gotten stupidly excited over seeing mythological sources talked about seriously.
“Maybe,” I said, thoughts racing. “But… the few times my mind has overlapped with Winter, I got a sense of something else, other than him. There was a dream I had during the Trials,” I said hesitantly, “before I got possessed. In it Winter was gloating, I guess? He had almost wiped out all of humanity, or at least what he thinks of as humanity. And he was searching for three others—but they weren’t people.”
Sam blinked. “Well, there aren’t any apocalypse myths about everyone dying in never-ending winter, right?”
“Actually, there’s Fimbulwinter,” Tyler chimed in. We both stared at him. “What? Norse mythology is cool. But that’s more like a prophecy than a history, anyway. It’s about how the world will end, not about something that’s already happened.”
Sam smacked her forehead. “Guys, we kind of missed the obvious one. What if Winter’s history isn’t a myth? What if it’s something that actually happened?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, confused.
Sam gave me a half-delighted, half-terrified grin. “What’s an event in history that killed off tons of species and hit people pretty bad too? What time period that lasted for like a hundred thousand years covered most of the world in ice and snow?”
I paled. “You’re saying that I—that Winter—caused the Ice Age?”
Sam lifted her arms in a “what can you do” gesture. “Well, we know that Winter’s powerful and old, right? He can take down pretty much anything, and even Didas seems scared of him. I bet something like that can cause an Ice Age, easy.” She grinned at me. “Congratulations. You’re probably the host for one of the most powerful beings to ever exist. And the most homicidal, but let’s not dwell on that,” she finished weakly. Tyler frowned at her. My head was too busy spinning.
“You know, somehow this raises more questions than answers,” I said. “But there’s no way we’re the first people to think of this. There have to be at least a few records, or theories, or something we can read up on.”
“You’re right,” Sam said. “I’ll ask Lailah if she’s ever heard anything about it. You might want to ask Didas.”
“I think I’d rather do just about anything except that,” I muttered.
Tyler startled next to me. “You know that not fighting in the Arena isn’t actually a viable solution, Fay. I know you hate Didas and believe me, I do too, but if you have to merge with Winter eventually, maybe it’s a good idea to know what you’re getting into.”
I sighed. “I hate it when you get all reasonable.”
Tyler smiled at me. “I’m just trying to help.” He winced. “And as much as I’d love to stay, I can’t just disappear for the whole weekend. I have practice. I’ve got to be getting back. Keep me updated on this. I want to be able to help you as much as I can.”
I nodded. “I promise.”
“Oh God, just kiss already,” Sam said, making a retching noise. “You two are so romantic that it hurts me to be in the same room as you.”
We ignored the second part of what she said in favor of the first, and then Tyler left.
“So…,” Sam said, giving me a terrifying smirk. “We going to talk about how Tyler was the one who brought you back?”
I blinked. That came out of nowhere. “What?”
“You know,” Sam said, and I knew that voice. That was a voice pitched precisely to get a rise out of me. “When you went all homicidal in the match, guess whose voice brought you back to your senses?”
I had a sudden flash of Tyler’s face, his voice filled with worry, the weight of his hand on my shoulder. My face flamed. “Oh.”
“I’m just saying,” Sam said, picking at her nails, “if I ever had to pick an example of ‘true love’ breaking a spell—after seeing that? It’s always gonna be you two. Because that, back there? As scary as that almost was? That was fucking Disney.”
I buried my face in my hands. “Oh my God.” It really was. I couldn’t believe everyone saw that.
“There, there,” Sam said, not bothering to hide her glee. “I think it’s adorable how romantic you two are.”
“I hate you.”
“I know, sweetie. I know.”
Chapter Nineteen
WHEN I tried to get to Didas’s office later that night, the key didn’t work. No matter how many times I called the headmaster’s name, he either wasn’t in his office or, and I acknowledged that this was equally possible, had simply decided to ignore me. Either way, it meant that right now, I was on my own. I’d already eaten and didn’t yet feel like sleeping, and so that meant it was time to go to the library and start searching th
e old-fashioned way.
When I left Obsidian, the grounds were dark and almost eerily quiet. A few students were usually coming and going at this time of night, but the unusual chill today’s weather had brought apparently drove them all inside. Since the cold didn’t exactly cause any problems for me, I was happy to go for a walk.
Something was wrong. The path back to the center of campus from the dorms wasn’t cooperating. I’d been walking for almost five minutes, and the buildings didn’t seem to be getting any closer, though their shadows stretched longer and longer. I thought I saw movement out of the corner of my eye several times as I picked up my pace, but each time I turned to look, there was nothing. I pulled out my phone to text Sam, and it was dead, despite my charging it to full not an hour back. I turned around, and I couldn’t even see Obsidian or any of the other houses anymore. Just a wall of shadows, and they didn’t feel like the ones Aiden had under his control in the slightest. The entire situation felt a lot more like the one during the attack at the Trials.
There was another flash of movement, and I spun around quickly enough to see an ink-black form with two pinpricks of blue-white light for eyes sink back into the darkness. Shit. So much for hoping this would end well. I tried not to panic and started mouthing the words for Ward aloud under my breath. If they were going to kill me, I wasn’t going to make it easy for them.
More and more of the creatures started appearing in my line of sight, sinking in and out of the shadows like it was an ocean. They were getting closer, and I could see the way the darkness pooled across the lawn now, ignoring what few distant light sources there were. I wasn’t going to make it out in time. The path was mostly gone—I was in a slowly shrinking circle of unaffected grass. I stopped walking and took a deep breath. I was done with letting everyone intimidate and control me.