In The Depths Of Winter

by Bradley Mitzelfelt

  In The Depths of Winter

  by

  Bradley R. Mitzelfelt

  In the Depths of Winter

  Book 2 of The Dark Mage Chronicles

  Copyright © 2017 by Bradley R. Mitzelfelt

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Art by Natalie Pavlidou

  Published September 2017 by: Hawks Barrow Press

  Printed in the United States of America

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters in this novel are fictional, and any resemblance to locales or persons, either living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Acknowledgements

  This book is dedicated to my family, friends, college professors, and high school teachers, without whom I would never have found the strength and desire to write novels in the first place. Your encouragement, and in some cases your knowledge of the industry, have allowed me to share my story with a greater audience than I could have ever predicted. You have my gratitude, and I hope you will continue to push me in the future.

  Prologue

  “We’re leaving.”

  Persephone looked up from her book, eyes of warm, sea blue settling on her sister. “What are you talking about? We can’t leave. Father would be angry.”

  “You know he’s not our father,” the red-haired woman sitting opposite from her said. “He made us, but that doesn’t make him our father. He’s an old fool who’s doing things that will end up getting us killed if we stay here. I already almost died once thanks to that mission he sent me on in Brivan. How would you have liked that?”

  She closed her book. “I know you almost died, Daedre, but you didn’t. And you have to admit that we’re safer here than we would be out there. We’ve never lived outside of this place.”

  “No, we haven’t.” Daedre stood and walked over to crouch in front of her sister. “We’re not safe here, though. You don’t know what he’s doing because he shelters you. I don’t know much of what he’s doing, but I know that it’s not good. He’s already started one war. When people find out, they will come here to take him on. When they do, he won’t be able to stop them all. Not when the Laradain come. If the Devan survive they’ll come after him too.”

  The book, now forgotten, was laid down on her lap. She stared at her big sister, eyes narrowed, tongue pressed into her cheek. She sat that way for a little while, until Daedre started to fidget, unable to remain still for so long.

  “Do you really think the Laradain will fight him?” she finally asked.

  “He’s trying to hunt them down and kill them. If someone was doing that to you, wouldn’t you fight back?”

  I suppose I would, Persephone thought. That doesn’t mean I would like it, though. I am part Devan, and brawling is rather fun, but I would rather read about them than get fight in one. She her book and clutched it to her chest, eyes focused on her sister.

  “Why is he trying to kill them?”

  Daedre shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. He killed most of the humans here in the Vale and he’s started a war between the Devan and Brivan, so I suppose he wants to rule the world by weakening everyone else.” She stood and walked over to press her ear against the cool, smooth wood of the door. “He’s lost his mind, you know. The man that you call father is nothing more than insanity in flesh form.”

  She lowered her head when she heard this. It was true, she knew that, but she’d been telling herself for some time that the he could be saved. Telling herself that wasn’t enough to make it true, but it made her feel better. The man that she used to love, who would comb her hair and tell her childhood stories about himself and his brother, was just a lie put on by a man who wanted everything. He always had, and she’d felt it in his stories, but she’d pretended it wasn’t true. It was nice to have a father, after all.

  Turning to the side, she set the book, a spell book once owned by Gregor’s mother, on the nightstand and slowly climbed off of the bed, which creaked as it adjusted. She straightened her dress, wispy hands wiping away each wrinkle, and then focused on Daedre.

  “I assume you have a plan of some sort? And it doesn’t involve the people you traveled back with from Brivan, does it?”

  Daedre shook her head. “No, it doesn’t. I hope never to see any of them again. One of them managed to fell Gtheb, but not until after he’d killed the guardsman that had come with us. I buried my dagger in the dwarf’s back, so she should be dead as well. Dearic might still live, but he will be long gone by now. I have no desire to see him.”

  “Good, because I don’t want anything to do with them. I want to travel and see everything we can. I want you to take me to Brivan. One of the port cities, but not the capital. I want to see ships, and ride on one. Maybe we can find an island somewhere and live there away from whatever Father is doing.”

  Her sister sighed, though her lips twisted upward ever so slightly. “We can go to Nautil. It should be safe there. No one knows me like this. You can see your ships, but I don’t know about the island. We’ll just have to see what happens.”

  Persephone grinned. “Are we leaving now?”

  “Once you get everything packed that you want to take with you. It’s a long trip, so I suggest you don’t pack every book you own, especially since you have to carry what you bring.”

  Persephone nodded and went to pull her trunk out from under the bed.

  “And you can’t bring that, either. You need to pack bags, not a trunk,” Daedre said. “There’s no way, and no one, to carry it.”

  A whimper escaped her lips as she stared at the trunk. She wanted to take it with her. Maybe we could get a wagon? No. That would require that there be wagons here and I doubt there are any. Besides, there so slow and Daedre wants to move fast. Grudgingly, she pushed the trunk back beneath the bed. It would be left behind, likely forever, empty and forgotten.

  She walked to the stained oak wardrobe, clawed feet resting on a stone floor, ignoring her older sister in favor of focusing on her own packing. From within she pulled a couple of bags. One of them she stuffed full of books and some clothing. If she couldn’t bring all her books, she would only bring the ones on studies of flora and fauna. She liked those best and they would be potentially useful on their trip. Considering the lack of settlements between Meridea and Brivan, they’d have to rely on wild foods. At least she would know what kinds of mushrooms were alright to eat.

  The second bag was largely packed with clothing, but she threw in a couple of daggers as well. She didn’t wear them because she didn’t need to, as the threat of Gregor kept her safe inside the wall, but outside it would be altogether different.

  “I’m ready,” she said as she held the straps of the two bags and looked at her sister.

  “That was quick. I expected it to take you much longer. You’re always so indecisive when it comes to books.”

  “I want to take them all. I love my books,” Persephone said as she drug her bags over near the door. “You said I can’t, so I decided on some books on flora and fauna. They might be useful.”

  “They might be,” Daedre agreed. “More than history books or spell books would be.”

  Persephone nodded in agreement. “Now what do we do?”

  “I’ve already got a couple of horses saddled in the stables. I hid them at the back so no one would question why they were saddled. We just need to get there without being seen.”

  “I wish we could say goodbye to father. He will be sad when he finds us gone.”

  Daedre shook her head, grabbed her own bags, and opened the door. “No, he w
on’t. Trust me, he’ll never even notice. He’s gotten that bad.”

  The older sister stepped out into the hall, turning her head to each side, and then started walking the opposite direction of the stairs. Persephone drug her bags out into the hall and looked after her sister, but only stood there watching her walk away.

  “Shouldn’t we go the other way?” she asked.

  Daedre stopped and looked back at her. “No. We’ll take one of the side entrances so we don’t attract too much attention.”

  “Even those are guarded, though. Won’t it seem even more suspicious if we take one of those exits?”

  The older woman didn’t hesitate. “No.” She turned and started walking again.

  Even though she didn’t understand the response, Persephone started following her sister, trusting in her decision. The bags weren’t too heavy for her to carry, she was much stronger than she looked, but she wanted to get into the habit of seeming weaker and daintier than she was, so she drug them instead of carrying them. It would come in handy later to look weak.

  They left the rooms dedicated to the Mimikans behind, heading up a side stair to the main level, and silently made their way down a hall. They hadn’t yet seen anyone, but Persephone knew that was largely because the fortress was barely occupied. There were only a handful of humans that continued to live within the walls, and most all of them were servants and staff that kept the place in working order. None of them would even dare to bother the two sisters.

  It’s not the humans we have to worry about. It’s the half-elves. She shuddered briefly. Even though they were kin to her, she despised everything to do with them. They were an imperfect union between elves and humans. Unlike her, they didn’t possess the full trait set of both. No, they tended more towards one or the other. She was a perfect union. That made her better.

  They stopped at a corner where the hall opened onto a larger one. Daedre peered around the corner towards the doors at the end of the hall and then turned back to Persephone. She held up two fingers to indicate that there were two guards at the door. Persephone nodded as Daedre settled her bags on the ground, and then walked around the corner to disappear from her view.

  “What are you doing here, Daedre?” she heard one of the guards ask. He sounded surprised.

  “I came to see my favorite guards, of course,” her sister replied. “That’s not a crime, is it?”

  “Of course not,” the second guard said. The second guard seemed pleased and he even chuckled before continuing. “We can always use a break, and since your father isn’t here, he won’t notice if we’re suddenly all sweaty and dirty.”

  That left a sour taste in her mouth. So she gives her body to half-elves? That’s something I really didn’t need to know. Shaking her head, she stepped closer to the corner and peered around it. They weren’t the best looking of half-elves, even. Her sister clearly had odd taste.

  “Hey, who’s that?”

  Persephone pulled her head back around the corner and leaned back against the wall.

  “Who’s who?” Daedre asked.

  “I saw a girl stick her head around the corner,” the surprised one said. “Do you have someone with you?”

  Footsteps started to approach where she was hiding, and Persephone sucked in a breath and wished she had slipped her daggers on instead of packing them away.

  There was a grunt of pain from around the corner, and then a thud as something hit the floor.

  “What are you doing? You don’t have the right to kill us! Stand down!”

  Metal shinkt against metal, and she guessed that the guard had drawn his sword free. There was no sound for what seemed like forever after the blade was drawn. Persephone started to panic a little until someone walked around the corner. Before she could see who it was, she cried out and attacked with her fists.

  Instead of having the upper hand, as she normally would, she quickly found herself slammed back against the wall with a hand over her mouth. When she followed the arm that the hand belonged to, she found herself staring into the green eyes of her sister. Daedre stared back at her, calm as can be, but there was a curved dagger in her other hand that was still dripping blood.

  “Don’t be a fool, girl. You nearly got us killed and I was hoping to not have to harm them at all. You need to learn to be invisible.”

  Daedre let her grip go and Persephone fell down the wall to land roughly on her backside. She stared up at her sister, a bit shocked at the roughness. She has never treated me like that before. She’s always been so gentle. What happened to her out there? Maybe leaving isn’t a good idea.

  “Come on,” her sister said as she grabbed her bags and walked around the corner.

  Persephone sat there, completely perplexed by the change in her sister. Was she doing the right thing by going with her? What if their father hunted them down because of this? She didn’t like those thoughts. Her palms felt sweaty and her throat dry.

  “Persephone. Come on. Now.”

  The words were not a friendly suggestion. She understood her situation better now. This wasn’t a trip that she was being asked to take. No she was effectively being kidnapped by her own sister. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to disappoint Daedre, so she grabbed her bags, stood, and followed her sister to the door.

  Outside was strange to her. When she stepped out she expected to see a bright, sunny day with a clear blue sky. What she saw instead was a sky full of dark clouds, and everything was tinted green. She stared for a moment until her sister pushed her to move.

  They crept along the outside of the fortress proper until they reached the stables. Instead of entering through the open front doors, Daedre led her to the back where a smaller, side entrance stood open. She stepped inside and Persephone followed her. Within she found a couple more bodies lying on the ground. More dead people. These were humans, not half-elves. She stared at them, their blood stained throats, and then looked at her sister, who was paying them no mind while she tied her bags onto one of the two horses that were waiting there.

  “Did you-” she started to ask.

  “Yes,” Draene said. “It had to be done. They would have called guards to stop us.”

  There wasn’t even a remote hint of remorse or feeling of any kind in her sister’s voice. Persephone wasn’t sad about their deaths, she didn’t care for anyone aside from Daedre and their father, but it was still strange to see dead bodies lying around. She wasn’t used to it.

  “Get your bags tied to the horse,” her sister said. “We need to go before someone notices the guards inside and sounds the alarm. When that happens I want to be deep inside the forest.”

  Persephone nodded and stepped to the other horse, a painted gelding, and tied her bags onto either side of the simple saddle. They weren’t overly large so the horse wouldn’t have trouble carrying them, not when the only other weight was her. When she was done, she climbed up into the saddle, recalling from several books how one was to treat a horse. Taking the reins in one hand, she gently ran the other over the horse’s mane. It turned its head to look at her, snorted and shook its head from side to side, and turned back to look ahead.

  “Let’s go,” Daedre said as she maneuvered the horse through the stables.

  Persephone followed her sister out, expecting to see someone else around, but she didn’t. Did Daedre kill all of the stable staff? It seemed likely as they rode slowly and quietly through and back out into the eerie daylight. They passed around to the open front gates.

  When they were in sight of them, Daedre suddenly spurred her horse into a gallop, quickly leaving her younger sister behind. Persephone briefly pulled the horse to a stop in surprise, and then deduced the reasoning behind her sister’s actions. Jabbing her heels into the horse’s side, she pushed it to gallop as well, chasing her sister through the open gates and down the southerly path through the desolated plain around the fortress.

  All around them were tents belonging to goblins, orcs, and half-elves. Many stopped to stare at t
hem, but no one seemed to fully recognize the two women as they rushed through the encampment. No one tried to stop them. Two apparent humans on horseback would seem normal to them. Only humans or half-elves even used horses.

  One second they were riding through the stench of the encampment, and the next they were within the tranquil forest which smelled of pine and dirt. It wasn’t long before they couldn’t even hear the encampment, and only then did Daedre slow her horse to a walk. Persephone caught up to her and tugged on the reins to slow the gelding down. Her thighs were hurting and they hadn’t even gone far.

  “Will they follow?” she asked.

  “No. Not without direction. The leaders of those cretins back there will only do what Gregor tells them,” Daedre said. “If they start thinking and acting on their own they tend to end up dead.”

  “So, we’re free and clear?”

  “For now.”

  Daedre didn’t explain what that meant, and Persephone didn’t really feel like asking. She was a bit shaken about the whole thing. There was excitement as well as nervousness. This was her first time venturing out of Meridea.

  Turning about, she looked at the forest that surrounded them and smiled to herself. It was all so much grander than her books could describe. She could smell the scents of trees on the air. She couldn’t identify what trees she was smelling, but she could tell that there were a lot of varieties of pine around them. This didn’t surprise her as much as the various different woodland animals that darted about did.

  She had to stop her horse and watch a gray squirrel chase an orange colored one up a tree. There were little birds flitting around and through the branches. She was enthralled at them, and it took a moment for her to realize that Daedre was yelling at her.

  “Keep up!”

  “Sorry!” she said as she nudged the horse to a cantor to catch up. “It’s just so much different from the way books describe it. I can’t help it. You know I like to study things, and this is my first time seeing them. Can’t we just stop for a few minutes so I can take it all in? Maybe make some sketches?”